


the boy in the water

by CloudCover (RainyForecast)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, Naiads/Nixies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 19:05:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11447148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyForecast/pseuds/CloudCover
Summary: Of all his family’s properties, Zhenya loves the summer house the most. It’s not exactly the jewel in the crown of their holdings; but Zhenya loves everything about it. He loves the sunny expanse of the sheep meadow, the dark woodlands that fringe it, and the mysterious, weedy canals that wind through the entire estate.But most of all, best of all, Zhenya loves the boy in the water.





	the boy in the water

 

Of all his family’s properties, Zhenya loves the summer house the most. It’s not exactly the jewel in the crown of their holdings; not as grand as the house in the city, or as impressive as the lodge in the mountains. It was just a modest part of the dowry his mother brought with her when she married his father, and Denis always complains that there’s nothing to do there. **  
**

But Zhenya loves everything about it. He loves the house, with its pale yellow and blue rooms and its tall windows. He loves the long, beech-lined walk and the gentle-eyed fallow deer in the deer park. He loves the sunny expanse of the sheep meadow, the dark woodlands that fringe it, and the mysterious, weedy canals that wind through the entire estate.

But most of all, best of all, Zhenya loves the boy in the water.

 

***

Behind the house, out of sight of the grand front drive and the bustle of the stables and the gatehouse, one of the canals widens into something too big to be called a pond and too small to be considered a lake. It’s carpeted with a glorious bounty of waterlilies and hyacinth, and around it willows lean down to let their branches kiss the surface of the water. And for as long as he can remember, Zhenya has snuck away from the watchful eyes of nannies and tutors to play with Sidney.

Sidney doesn’t have nannies or tutors. Sidney waits for Zhenya in the shadowy spaces under the willows, and he is as much a part of the landscape of Zhenya’s summers as the jewel-bright dragonflies that dance over the water’s surface.

Whenever Zhenya can get away, he goes to find Sidney, whose eyes will light up at the sight of him, and who can coax wild birds to light on their outstretched hands. Sidney will catch Zhenya slick, blinking frogs, and sometimes, he sings songs in a strange language Zhenya doesn’t know. And when he does, the lazy carp leave their sunning spots between the lilies and come nibble gently on Zhenya and Sidney’s toes, and waterbirds paddle their fuzzy babies in close to listen.

“What kind of person are you?” Zhenya asks one summer, when he is eight. He is old enough now to realize there is something unearthly about Sidney. Sidney blinks his strange green gold eyes and thinks.

“You all call us a lot of things. Naiads, nøkkar, rusalki, nixies.”

Zhenya has read about those, in the books of fairy tales Denis teases him for looking at, and he’s heard of them in the terrifying fables his nanny tells. “But those are mostly all ladies. And they’re mean and frightful.”

“I’m frightful,” Sidney says, and he bares his teeth, but the effect is broken when they both break into giggles until they can’t breathe.

“I’m glad,” Zhenya says later, when they’re laying on their stomachs on the bank, watching a silver cloud of minnows flit through the shallows. “I’m glad you’re you. I’m glad that you’re a boy like me and that you’re not fearful and cruel.”

“Me too,” Sidney answers, and smiles, slow and sweet.

 

***

 

When he is twelve, Zhenya is sent away to school, like all boys in families like his are. And he has to go so far away that there are no more long, lazy summers on his mother’s estate. Instead, there is the clamor and busyness of studies, and friends, and eventually, the laughing eyes of pretty girls and pretty boys to distract him. Memories of his childhood summers grow faded, and half-forgotten.

 

 

***

 

And then when his is eighteen, a war thunders down upon them all, and like thousands of other young men, Zhenya is swallowed into its maw.

He will not be spat back out again, broken, until he is three-and-twenty.

 

 

***

 

When Zhenya is honorably discharged after the armistice is signed, he is left with a shattered knee and nightmares that plague his sleep. Before the war, he might have decided to stay at his family’s house in the city, close to parties and gaiety. Now, all he can think about is the summer house, and how happy he used to be there. When he departs for it, the only person he takes along with him is Sasha, who fought at his side and understands well the invisible demons that stalk a soldier’s mind.

The estate and its lands are just as Zhenya remembers them, sleeping green and gold beneath the warm summer sun. Even the crunch of their horses’ hooves on the shell walk feels good and familiar. And it seems like the very breeze rustling the beech trees overhead soothes their brows in welcoming benediction.

“I can see why you loved this place,” Sasha says. Zhenya looks out over the deer park and smiles. It has been been a while since he has smiled easily.

“I do love it,” he says. “And I had—the most imaginative fancies about this place, when I was a child.

“Do tell,” Sasha grins, but boyish imagining notwithstanding, the memory of the imaginary friend Zhenya dreamed up here feels too special and private to share.

Zhenya falls asleep easily enough the first night. His windows are open to let in the night breezes and the gentle fluting calls of the meerkoeten nesting in the reeds. But his soldier’s dreams are tenacious, and he spends a fretful, haunted night.

 

***

 

In the morning, there are wet, muddy footprints on the parquet floors, and strands of waterweed caught on the lip of the windowsill. Zhenya, disturbed, sleeps with the windows closed after that.

 

***

 

Strange happenings persist, however. Zhenya sometimes feels like he’s being watched, even when Sasha or the servants are nowhere in sight. No matter how tightly he latches the windows at night, in the morning one of them will always be open, the sill damp.

And when he falls asleep on a sunny bank one afternoon, he dreams of strange, green-gold eyes.

 

***

 

One night, when the moon hangs silver and full, sleep eludes Zhenya completely. He goes outside to take deep, gulping breaths of cool night air. But his nightmares he carries with him in his mind’s eye, and he ends up sitting on the broad stone steps that lead down to the water, head in his hands and fingers tight in his hair.

He isn’t certain how long he sits there. Lost as he is, he almost doesn’t hear the plash of water, and the soft, low voice that implores: “Zhenya? Please, tell me what it is that ails you so.”

 

***

 

It’s him. It’s Sidney, and he is both the same and startlingly different. Zhenya wonders wildly if this is yet another product of his fevered brain. But how can it be, when all his thoughts are misery and bloodshed, and this vision is so beautiful?

Sidney stands waist deep in the water, and Zhenya has seen statues in far off museums that look like he does. The moonlight silvers the pale, pale skin of his strong arms and shoulders, and shadows his eyes. Sidney has the sharp planes of a man’s face now, and a crown of lilies twined in his inky hair.  Zhenya cannot breathe.

Sidney steps forward, up and out of the water, and he kneels on the steps at Zhenya’s side. He reaches out and lays a hand along Zhenya’s cheek, and his touch is water-cool and gentle.

“You’re real,” Zhenya manages to gasp. Sidney’s smile turns a little sorrowful.

“Had you forgotten me?” he asks, and Zhenya can only nod, suddenly ashamed. “As long as you remember me now,” Sidney adds, and leans forward to place a kiss on Zhenya’s forehead that feels like the deepest kind of promise.

 

***

 

Zhenya might have been inclined to think Sidney a nighttime hallucination, but the next morning when Zhenya goes back to their old spot under the willows, there he is, perched on a gnarled root. He has on a pair of ragged breeches this time that look filched from some shepherd or gamekeeper, and he has a huddle of half-grown cygnets asleep on his lap.

“Zhenya!” he exclaims, and the joy in his voice is like the sun sparkling on water.

 

***

 

Zhenya still dreams of blood and gunpowder, some nights. He thinks he might always do so. But now, when he does, Sidney will awaken next to him to wrap him in his arms and press gentle kisses to his fevered brow. He’ll sing softly in an old, strange tongue, and Zhenya will fall back asleep with his head resting on Sidney’s chest, dreaming of green, calm water, and of peace.  

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A very short fic that is a love letter to Elswout in Overveen, The Netherlands (pictured, above), one of my favorite places on earth. I always daydreamed about nixies living in the canals, and then @nomorelonelydays‘s Nymph AU discussion on Tumblr happened, and, well. 
> 
> Unbeta'd. 
> 
> The title is not a song lyric, what is this madness
> 
> You can find me as [creaturesofnarrative ](http://creaturesofnarrative.tumblr.com/) (main) and [knifeshoeoreofight](http://knifeshoeoreofight.tumblr.com/) (hockey blog) on Tumblr, and as @RainyForecast on Twitter. Come say hi and cry with me about how hockey both real and fictional has eaten our lives.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [the boy in the water [podfic] by CloudCover](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16096889) by [werebear (rhien)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhien/pseuds/werebear)




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